According to George King of the New York Post the Braves and Giants “have an interest” in trading for Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain. King adds that both teams had a scout watching Chamberlain recently.

I was at Target Field last night, when Chamberlain picked up a win against the Twins with a scoreless inning, although he was all over the place and needed a mound visit at one point. It was an odd appearance.

Overall since coming off the disabled list in late May he’s thrown 11 innings with a 7.36 ERA, allowing opponents to hit .319 with four homers, although he does have a nice 15/4 K/BB ratio during that time.

It’s hard to imagine the Yankees getting a significant return for Chamberlain at this point. Thanks to an assortment of serious injuries he hasn’t thrown more than 30 innings in a season since 2010 and the 27-year-old right-hander is an impending free agent.

I know, right? I remember when he Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were supposed to be the future of the franchise. Now, Phil Hughes is at best league average and more consistently below league average. Ian Kennedy is scuffling ever since winning 21 games two years ago and not even in the Yanks system and Joba is just all over the place. (Wasn’t Edwin Jackson part of that group as well?)

It’s a shame. At various times, those guys showed a hell of a lot of promise.

I just watched Ian Kennedy bean people all over the place in Atlanta last weekend. He was terrible. I remember people talking about how much promise he had and it was just seemed to disappear overnight.

No on the Jackson front. Somehow, in all of his travels, he’s never put on pinstripes. Phil Hughes major fault is lack of a put away pitch. He’s meddled with various types of curveballs over the years, however none have really stuck. He had some misadventures with a pretty terrible cutter as well. He works deep into counts and is a right handed fly ball pitcher in a ballpark that is a dream for left handed power hitters. If he goes to SF, or San Diego he will be a solid #3 starter.

Couldn’t the Yankees make him a qualifying offer at the end of the season and pick up a supplemental first round draft pick? That may be a better return than what they would get from him at mid-season…. although I suppose Joba could accept the qualifying offer and then they are stuck with him for 13 mil next season.

But back to your original point, there are some late-night places in the Mission that would close up if they saw both Pablo and Joba heading their way, but I would pay to see those two attacking burritos at Taqueria la Cumbre after midnight.

How do they know the scouts were there to look at a specific player (in this case, Chamberlain)? I get it if it was a starting pitcher on a the trading block, and scouts showed up on his day to pitch. But Chamberlain is a reliever. How would scouts know he’d even pitch that day? Couldn’t they have been there to scout someone else? Or multiple someones from each team?

Surely the scouts don’t announce who they are there to see. Which means who they are scouting is purely speculation on the part of others. Right?

That’s a great point. I’ve often wondered that, too. Anytime people are “scouting” relievers or pinch hitters, etc, it seems that perhaps they were there for someone else and was like, “Eh, this dude’s on the market too, might as well take notes on him.”

AJ Burnett and Joba are nothing alike. At least AJ had class and handled his tenure with New York well. Joba’s been wearing his welcome out for a while now, culminating with the infamous “Don’t Shush Me!” story with Mariano Rivera.